*TEHRAN – Iran’s foreign minister will embark on a diplomatic tour to tryto salvage the nuclear deal amid high tensions following the US withdrawaland global fears over reports of unprecedented clashes with Israel inSyria.*——————————

Mohammad Javad Zarif will leave late Saturday for visits to Beijing, Moscowand Brussels, a spokesman said Friday, holding meetings with all five ofthe remaining parties to the 2015 nuclear deal.

Iran appeared determined not to be drawn into a wider regional conflictwith Israel during the sensitive negotiations.

That is despite Israel’s claims it struck dozens of Iranian targets insideSyria early on Thursday as part of “Operation House of Cards”.

Israeli Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman urged Syrian President Basharal-Assad to “throw the Iranians out” of his country.

Israel said the strikes were in response to a missile volley fired fromsouthern Syria by Iran’s Quds force, which struck the occupied GolanHeights without causing casualties.

But Iran flatly denied the Israeli version of events, saying Israel’sattacks were carried out on false “pretexts”.

“The repeated attacks by the Zionist regime on Syrian territory werecarried out under pretexts that were invented by themselves and are withoutfoundation,” said foreign ministry spokesman Bahram Ghasemi, withoutoffering further details.

Iran must tread a delicate line as it seeks to show resolve against Trumpand the Israeli strikes without alienating the European partners it needsto salvage something from the nuclear deal.

*– Iran concessions? –*

Zarif will hold high-pressure talks with the other parties to the deal,first in Beijing and Moscow, and then with his counterparts from Britain,France and Germany in Brussels on Tuesday.

All five have condemned Trump’s move to walk out of the deal and reimposecrippling sanctions, but European companies in particular will be highlyvulnerable to economic pressure from Washington.

France still hopes for a wider settlement that will cover Iran’s activitiesacross the Middle East, and warned Tehran on Thursday “against anytemptation for regional dominance”.

Iran’s hardliners are already mobilising against any concessions to Europe,with hundreds protesting in Tehran after Friday prayers, saying it was timeto abandon the deal.

“Officials shouldn’t trust France and Britain. They will never abandon theUS for us,” said Poormoslem, a housewife at the rally.

In Jerusalem, around 200 Jews gathered at the Western Wall for prayers“against the enemy”.

“We came here to pray to God after the victory against Iran” following theUS withdrawal from the nuclear deal, said Aryeh Stern, a rabbi fromJerusalem.

Southern Syria was quiet but tense, with monitors saying Syrian, Iranianand allied Lebanese forces from Hezbollah were on high alert.

The Israeli raids had prompted concern Iran could activate its powerfulally Hezbollah to retaliate from its positions in southern Lebanon, openingup a deadly new front in the conflict.

Iranian analysts said Israel had struck first on Thursday, and that anyretaliation was the work of the Syrian military, not Iran.

*– ‘Severe threat’ to stability –*

But the White House put the blame on Iran, condemning its “recklessactions” that it warned pose a “severe threat” to stability in the MiddleEast.

“Already this week, the IRGC has fired rockets at Israeli citizens, andIran’s proxies in Yemen have launched a ballistic missile at Riyadh,” itsaid, referring to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Trump spoke with British Prime Minister Theresa May on Friday, and “bothleaders condemned the Iranian regime’s provocative rocket attacks fromSyria,” the White House said.

The United States has said that despite its withdrawal from the nuclearaccord, it wants inspections by the UN’s nuclear watchdog, theInternational Atomic Energy Agency, to continue in Iran.

The IAEA said meanwhile that its chief inspector Tero Varjoranta resigned,without giving a reason for his sudden departure.

“The agency’s safeguards activities will continue to be carried out in ahighly professional manner,” a spokesperson for the agency said on Friday.

Analysts say Israel feels it has a green light from Washington to move moreaggressively against Iran’s presence in Syria, particularly after Trump’swithdrawal from the nuclear deal.

They also see a rare chance for Iran to hold the moral high ground.

“For the first time, Iran has the chance to show the world they are not therogue nation they are always presented as, that they negotiated in goodfaith and keep to their commitments,” said Karim Emile Bitar, of theInstitute for International and Strategic Affairs in Paris.

Russia — which is alone in having close relations with both Iran and Israel— has sought to position itself as a mediator to prevent further escalation.

Its foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said “all issues should be solvedthrough dialogue” and that Russia had warned Israel to avoid “all actionsthat could be seen as provocative”.

However, one analyst at London’s Chatham House, Yossi Mekelberg, said thestrikes on Iranian targets “were likely undertaken with tacit Russianapproval”.

On Friday the Kremlin said Russian President Vladimir Putin had spoken withGermany’s Angela Merkel and Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan in a bid to keepthe Iran nuclear deal alive. – APP/ AFP